Inventive concepts relate to a method of controlling an etching process for forming fine patterns of a semiconductor device. More particularly, the inventive concepts relate to a method of controlling an etching process using an advanced process control (APC) method.
Processes of manufacturing a semiconductor device may include deposition processes, ion implantation processes, photolithography processes, and etching processes, for example. The semiconductor processes may be performed on one semiconductor wafer to manufacture the semiconductor device. However, when the semiconductor process is repeatedly and continuously performed on a semiconductor wafer by a semiconductor wafer treating apparatus, variations may arise in the processes and in the resulting devices. If the process ability of the semiconductor wafer treating apparatus is varied, dispersion of process result values (e.g., process dispersion) used for monitoring the semiconductor process may also be varied. Thus, it may be required to control the process dispersion.
Patterns become smaller, pitches finer, and elements smaller as more and more elements are integrated into a highly integrated semiconductor device. The pitch corresponds to a sum of a width of each of the patterns and a distance between the patterns. As design rules of semiconductor devices are reduced, it may be difficult to form patterns having ever finer pitches due to limitations of resolution of photolithography processes, for example.